Stormzy Puts A Jazzy Spin On His Cover Of Beyonce’s ‘Lion King’ Song ‘Brown Skin Girl’

Update: Watch Stormzy perform his cover of Beyonce’s “Brown Skin Girl” above.

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This summer, Beyonce released her Lion King-inspired album The Lion King: The Gift, and although it isn’t strictly a Beyonce album, she is certainly all over it. One of her vocal highlights from the album is “Brown Skin Girl” (which also features Blue Ivy Carter), and now Stormzy has decided to pay tribute to the track by covering it on BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge.

Joined by singer Stalk Ashley, Stormzy’s performance began as a slow piano ballad before the rest of the band kicked in and added some pep to his soulful and jazzy rendition of the tune. Stormzy also included a nod to The Lion King with some new lyrics inspired by the film: “Young Simba and his lioness / Young Simba got his mind fresh.” Elsewhere during his three-song set, he also performed “Crown” and “Sounds Of The Skeng.”

This cover wasn’t unprecedented to Stormzy’s Twitter followers. In July, Stormzy took a moment to honor Beyonce, writing in a pair of tweets, “I know I ain’t the only person who every once in a while, just randomly finds themselves deeping how phenomenal Beyoncé is lol. As an artist, when you deep her career, her art, her live performance (this in particular is especially ridiculous), her achievements and everything in between it’s unfathomable smh,” followed by a goat emoji.

Listen to Stormzy’s cover of Beyonce’s “Brown Skin Girl” here, beginning at about 8:22 into the clip.